According to George

WINTER 2020

t was a year ago this month that we published my interview with Todd Britton, the recent past president of Bowl Canada (the Canadian bowling association) and proprietor of the then brand-new Uptown Alley, Winnipeg. Our company was privileged to work on the project for Todd and, back then, it was off to a great start. Fast forward a year and Robert Sax brings us up to date on Todd’s center. I’ll leave it at that and let you read the feature. It seems like we just left IAAPA, doesn’t it? Well, Amusement Expo is right around the corner, this year in New Orleans, March 9-11. Howard McAuliffe provides the preview of what to expect inside Beyond Bowling. I’ve always found Amusement Expo to be, in some respects, more important than IAAPA as a buying show due to the timing. While most new games are shown at IAAPA, it is only by Amusement Expo that we have good sales data on actual performance. Smarter buys are made at this show which is seeing more BEC operator attendance every year.

Speaking of smarter, my interview this month is with Keri Little, a managing partner of HD5 Entertainment, LLC. This edition is our first Beyond Bowling of the year. I always review past editions as we start a new year looking for patterns and According to George I

new ideas. What jumped out at me in this year’s review is my reliance on male interview subjects; it’s been essentially all men. We’re changing that, starting now. Keri is an experienced BEC operator, and she shares her unique perspective on what is important to execute operations at a high level.

As we enter 2020, the talk of the industry is the amount of competition out there. Competition can be direct and indirect; both types compete for the time and dollars of our guests. The second biggest topic is the labor market: with the U.S. at record low levels of unemployment, staffing is challenging to say the least, as is turnover. So BEC operators need to work smarter than ever. Hopefully this Beyond Bowling will provide some ideas and help to get the year off to a good start for you. Enjoy! ❖

George McAuliffe Principal, Pinnacle Entertainment Group